Chonky Panda Tactics
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Part Twenty
Welcome back to Foal From Grace and happy Pride month! The DFB-Pokal quarter-final, the Champions League last 16, and a Rhein Derby signal the business end of the season arriving today.
I’m feeling very cosy as I sit on one of the sofas in a break room at Borussia-Park, my legs across the cushions, my headphones on, a blanket over my legs, and a cup of tea within reach on the wooden table I’ve pulled close to me as I write down some ideas with different coloured pens in my tactics notebook while the squad go through some gym work, planning for both this season and next. If we stick with the same shape, where would we need to upgrade? If we swapped to the 4-3-3, how could I make us less susceptible to counter-attacks? Is there a different shape we could change to, such as a back four with a double pivot?
Having completed the audit of my current players for each formation, I’m midway through writing down possible transfer targets when my music gets interrupted by my ringtone. Frustrated, I mute the call without turning over my phone and go back to what I was doing, but I’ve barely found the page I was on before the ringing starts again, so this time I pick my phone up off of the table and look at the screen to see who it is that’s bothering me, discovering it’s Krystian Bielik, putting my notebook down on the table before answering.
“Can I help you, Krystian?” I snap.
“Hey, boss, are you busy?” my captain asks.
“Very,” I say with slightly less conviction, having glanced at my blanket before replying. “Do you need something?”
“Um… well… it’s just…”
“Spit it out, Krystian, I’ve got things to get back to,” I say, gazing at my tea.
“Okay, okay. After we finished in the gym, Gregor suggested we have a table tennis tournament,” Krystian explains. “We paired up, worked out the structure, and started going through the group games, but things may have gotten a little out of hand after one matchup…”
“How ‘out of hand’?”
“Not too much. In fact, maybe I shouldn’t have bothered you, don’t wo-”
“Krystian, you’ll tell me what happened right now.”
“Miloš threw a medicine ball at Jesper and now there’s a shattered mirror.”
“WHAT?!” I shout, hurling my blanket off and sitting upright. “Is everyone okay?!”
“Yeah, don’t worry, Jesper’s quick and there’s a reason Miloš isn’t a goalkeeper,” Krystian states. “There is a lot of glass though. Do you think you could come down and help us sort this out?”
“For goodness’ sake,” I grumble. “Fine, I’ll be there soon,” I add, hanging up and putting my phone back on the table. I sigh and begin to slowly rub my temples with the thumb and little finger on my right hand. How did things get so heated?
An unexpected touch on my shoulder startles me, my knee jolting into my mug and knocking it, and all of its contents, onto the floor, the tea soaking into the carpet as I pull off my headphones and look up at a sheepish-looking Alexis Geiler.
“I’m genuinely getting worried about how easily startled you are,” she says.
“I’ve met baby deer with stronger constitutions, I’ll admit,” I reply. “Is this about the medicine ball?”
“Yes, Edwin just WhatsApped me,” Alexis sighs. “I wanted to offer you some moral support.”
“I’d appreciate it, thank you,” I chuckle, standing up. “Just a second.” I turn my notebook over and take one of the little cards out of a homemade pocket on the back, placing it next to my stuff on the table. “Alright, let’s go.”
“Do you seriously have notices ready to go that say ‘Sorry about the mess, I’ll be back to clear up soon - Nicole’?” Alexis asks as we make our way through the complex.
“I’m tired of writing new messages every time I leave chaos behind, saves time this way,” I shrug. “Speaking of messages, though, since when are you on WhatsApping terms with Edwin Zamudio?”
“Since he offered to help me practise my Spanish,” Alexis answers. “It’s rather beneficial to have a native speaker to learn with.”
“How’s that been going?”
“Very well,” Alexis smiles. “I’m getting competent enough to hold my own in most scenarios now. I could probably do with a trip to a Spanish-speaking country to really accelerate my learning, but I’m satisfied with how much I’ve grasped the language so far.”
“The speed at which you learn languages is so impressive,” I say.
“Well, yes, that’s one of the reasons I’m employed here.”
“Just take the compliment, Lexi,” I snigger.
“I appreciate the compliment, I’m simply pointing out that I’d be a pretty terrible interpreter, or ‘Head of International Managerial Affairs’, if I wasn’t any good at learning languages,” Alexis states.
“Remind me not to praise you for the job you do again,” I mutter as we reach the games room and I take a moment to decide how to approach things, eventually settling on ‘disappointed mother’ as I open the door. “Now, boys, how many times have I told you to play nicel-”
I stop dead in my tracks as I scan the room. There is no broken mirror. What there is, however, is a big, black love heart on the white wall that, on closer inspection, is made up of writing, with the phrase ‘Class of 2028’ neatly scribed just above, my whole squad standing next to it with ear-to-ear grins spread across all of their faces.
“What… what’s this?” I mumble.
“This, boss, is our first Wall of Promises,” Krystian says, proudly. “Each of us have written an ambition of ours into this heart so that, over time, we can see just how many of our goals we achieve, with the plan that we’ll make this an annual tradition and leave memories for future generations to look back on and be inspired by. What do you think?”
“I love it,” I beam. “Were you in on this?” I ask Alexis, to which she smiles and nods in response, making me laugh. I turn back to the wall and step closer to read some of the messages. “‘I want to be part of another ‘invincible’ league season’, no prizes for guessing that one,” I say, winking at Krystian who smiles back. “‘I want to captain England at a World Cup’, who’s this?” Liam Heywood raises his hand to take credit. “I like it, Liam, love the ambition. ‘I want to run my own food truck, specialising in pancakes’. That’s an unexpected one, who wrote that down?”
“That was me,” Tariq Lamptey says.
“It’s not a footballing ambition, though.”
“No one said it had to be.”
“And this plan, is it for when you retire, or are you starting soon, attempting to balance the life of a professional athlete with that of a small-business owner?”
“I’m feeling very targeted here, chief.”
“Sorry,” I say, glancing back at the wall. “What’s the gap for?”
“That’s for you,” Krystian explains, walking over and handing me a black marker pen. “What are you going to add?”
“That’s easy,” I smile, removing the lid and reading out what I’m writing, as I write it. “I want to always be at least as happy as I am now.”
“That’s a sweet thought, Nicole,” Alexis says.
“Very,” Krystian agrees. “Is there anything you can think of that we can do to help keep you this happy?”
“There is one thing,” I say, handing back the pen. “You can beat Mainz on Wednesday to put us into the Pokal semi-finals.”
Eventually, though, we’re rewarded for our endeavour. Having kept up the pressure after the restart, an incisive ball from Dan-Axel Zagadou that takes five Mainz players out of the game allows Tresoldi to double his tally for the evening, and he doesn’t have to wait too long to claim his hat-trick by flicking in Robin Gosens’ daisy-cutting cross from the left soon after to put us in complete control.
Whilst an unfortunate deflection that results in a Bielik own-goal does take a little of the sheen off of proceedings, it’s still a confident and competent display that sees us march on to the final four.
* * * * * * * *
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